In this study, first published in 1965, the author explores the implications of research for an alternative approach to religious education. The book deals with the psychological bases of religious development, reviewing the natural limitations as well as the basic needs of the young, and how religious education should be affected by educational theory and practice. The author also examines what content and methods of teaching are consistent with the healthy development of children and adolescents. Teachers in schools, students in training, lecturers, clergy and ministers, and local education authority committees will welcome the book as an important aid to the task of rethinking syllabuses and the need for more child-centred methods of teaching.

Intended for the use of primary head teachers, class teachers and teachers in training, this book examines the requirements of the 1988 Education Reform Act in respect of religious education in schools. It offers guidance on ways in which religious education can be developed successfully.

The 10 volumes in this set, originally published between 1965 and 1994, draw together research by leading academics in the area of religious education and provides a rigorous examination of related key issues. The volumes examine the teaching of world faiths in schools, religious education in both primary and secondary schools, and the teaching of morality. This set will be of particular interest to students of Education and Religious Studies.

Learning to Give as Part of Religious Education attempts to answer the question: what is actually to go on in a lesson about "life" or "reality"? It takes as its starting point a sure ground of adolescent concern: the compassion for human suffering which is normally awakened and keenly felt in the middle teens. It then proceeds to inform this compassion: it explores the depth and shape of the need; it amasses the facts of the situation; it illustrates the human meaning of it, with quotation from biography and poetry and personal documents; it describes the efforts made, in active compassion, to relieve the need; and it makes suggestions of ways in which the young can share in the work of relief. Finally, it marches on to biblical and other statements about the human situation that set these specific agonizing points of suffering against the vast problem of evil, viewed in the light of a belief in a God who cares, thus lifting the human adventure from its sublunar situation on to a cosmic level.

Meaningful, lasting learning comes from childlike curiosity and play. The approach of this book is to make relgious instruction fun, spontaneous and deeply spiritual. Godly Play is a practical yet innovative approach to religious education--becoming childlike in order to teach children.